what's in ur wallet?

Which is to say, it's not about counter-productive abstractions--it's about physically existent demographics of actual people. Cool! I agree. Long overdue!

So, how do we get people to abandon the use of "left" and "right" as nouns and to focus on ways to move forward instead of wallowing in the shit they constantly smear on themselves and each other?

The concept of left and right defies logic. How can it be that all of the people in one party only believe lies, and everyone in the other party only tells the truth?

Actually the scenario you pose is logically sound. The problem is that it does nothing to describe reality. Polemic is pandemonium, literally--an eternal battlefield where nothing exists except the dichotomy of us vs them, and the sole purpose of that existence is to dominate the other side or die trying. Yawn. I've seen that movie before and I know how it ends. And that's how the majority of people treat politics. Both camps harbor the mentality that "you're either with us or you're against us", and their respective definitions of "us" are increasingly narrow. Case in point: RINOs.

On the other side, I've had "moderate" memes on this stream unfeatured for "not being liberal or progressive", even thought the DEFINITION of PoliticsTOO is "Imgflip’s flagship liberal stream: where left-of-center and moderate viewpoints can be reliably seen and heard." And I'M the asshole--just not for being right-of-far-left, but for deluding myself into thinking people from one extreme are any better, or even meaningfully different, than people from the other.

Not entirely bad though: the upshot is I was finally able to reconcile how I know plenty of people who hold conservative viewpoints and are decent people, and how many people I thought were decent simply because our liberal ideals overlap, yet who turned out to be irredeemable pieces of shit. In short, the overlap between political ideology and essential human decency is incidental.

Haha, don’t worry about it, no matter what I post or where I post it I always piss someone off even if it’s not my intention ( only 50% of the time it’s on purpose).

Heh, we both used to go by different names...I started following Ultramega close to a year ago. If anyone can convincingly pull off my particular brand of incisive, irreverent banter, I'll place my mouth over their genital region and draw succulently.

People getting offended doesn't bother me at all--being labeled offensive was incorporated into my self-identity by the time I started puberty. What galls me is people who can't follow their own rules. If you're going to preach tolerance, fu​cking be tolerant. If you're going to say moderate viewpoints are represented, fu​cking represent moderate viewpoints. And even that doesn't piss me off as much as the people who ALLOW those other people to attain and maintain positions of authority in the first place. Okay great, so and so is a douchbag, nothing special there...but why are they still here? Who the fu​ck hired and is choosing to retain said douchbag, and why are THEY still in charge?

The more I disentangle myself from the liberal identity I grew up with, the more my disappointment with the shortcomings on the left side of the fence falls away. The truth of good and bad apples being everywhere does not care about my disposition towards or against any particular bushel, and my views stand without or in spite of any label applied to them.

Um, I’m gonna say it like this, no matter what you post about 30% of people will like it,30% will hate it and the rest will feel However they are told to feel about it. The most important thing to keep in mind (for me anyway) is to remember that nobody really gives a shit about anything but themselves. As a matter of fact the less of a shit you give, the better off you are. There’s a secret game everyone plays and it’s called if you get mad you lose. Butthurt aquired on-line is bad for your health.

Negativity bias. Part of the human condition is being more attuned to the negative than the positive. It's a trait that was naturally selected for, probably because everyone disposed to complacence got eaten by threats they didn't realize were there. So here we are: the living legacy of a lineage hardwired to fixate on the negative. Life's a mixed bag where you take the good with the bad? Statistically you're always going to come out behind.

Kindness slips away like sand through your fingers, while barbs leave scars that you carry forever. But hey, it's not a bug, it's a feature! It's also why I say with empathy and compassion that I wish extinction on homo sapiens. I've tried to find the callousness within me to envy humanity its miserable existence, but in the end I'm just too soft-hearted.

Ooooh, that is pure evil. And that’s okay. I’m not negative, I just call it how I see it.

There is a bit of eastern philosophy I live by; Don’t ask why bad things happen to good people or why there is so much evil in the world, just know that everything has a beginning a middle and an end. When you zoom out it completes 1 perfect picture.

I don’t care who you are or what you believe, at least you are willing to have a conversation with me.

Interesting. If euthanizing a sick beast to end its suffering is pure evil, what's taking a sick beast, injecting its sinus cavities with expanding foam, gutting it from crotch to sternum and waterboarding it with its own stomach contents? I mean, that's merciful compared to even more evil things, but to set your threshold for evil as low as you have rather cheapens the term, don't you think?

You’re all right!

'ang on a tic...I passed up the opportunity to say "I looked in my wallet and found my wad...which is why my bills are all stuck together. Sorry George and Abe! This wouldn't have happened but seeing the way you two kissed was too hot to ignore."